


In the Glass I Saw a Strange Reflection

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Alien Biology, Desk Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Group Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Set a handful of trine before Age of Resistance, SkekSil and skekTek are very weird friends with very weird benefits., discussion of orgies, skekTek is loud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 16:14:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20745050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: The Skeksis reminisce about happy, hedonistic days gone by. SkekTek occupies an increasingly unhappy present. SkekSil stops by to propose something vaguely shaped like a solution.





	In the Glass I Saw a Strange Reflection

“_I wonder, does anyone remember the old parties we used to hold? You know what I mean...the really fun ones? No Gelfling eyes allowed?”_

“_...The ritual Flaying of Hands?”_

“_No, no, no, morbid! Back when we were young! Remember? You'd all take turns going at one another until daybreak and the Podlings would mop up afterwards?”_

“_Ah, yes! The Ecstatic Rites!”_

“_Well, yes, but nobody called them that, obviously. We were all just out to have a good time. Of course, this was before you all started sagging and oozing and -"_

“_Well, I certainly remember! Oh, those were the halycon trine. No night was too long then, no revelry too tiresome -”_

“_You liked it when we finished on your face.”_

“_...Yes, skekLach. In the very basest of terms, I did.”_

“_But that was the sublimity of it! No shame, no compunction! We'd go as long as we liked, break off to eat whenever we were hungry, sleep where we fell...it's a wonder any of us got anything done at all! And yet, you know, I'd say Thra was never more prosperous.”_

“_Hm. Perhaps if you'd get something done now and figure out how to restore us properly, we could return to those days instead of reliving them at the dinner table.”_

“_...I beg your pardon, General?”_

“_Aw, skekVar, don't turn it into a -”_

“_You heard me, Scientist. For all your enthusiasm, it seems to me that none of your little breakthroughs have returned us to the peak of our physical perfection. Why is that?”_

_  
“At least I have cause for enthusiasm. I never walked away from a gathering unsatisfied. I never received a single complaint. If memory serves, you were the one with a reputation for leaving the rest of us wanting.”_

“_A pity for the rest of us, then, that your greatest accomplishment in life was serving as the castle's mewling pleasure sleeve.”_

“_Hah!”_

“_Walked right into that one!”_

“_You did mewl a lot, skekTek.”_

“_Enough, all of you! General, don't be crude. Scientist, the General's concerns on your progress are valid. And in the future, you'll kindly keep your more colorful memories to yourself. Is that understood?”_

“_But Emperor, I was merely -”_

“_To yourself, skekTek.”_

“_...Of course, sire. Of course.”_

“_Good. Now, you were saying, Chamberlain? Before the Ornamentalist chimed in?”_

* * *

Sneaking out is only going to hurt him in the long run, skekTek knows. Skeksis have a woefully short attention span – the tactical thing to do would have been to have made it through the rest of dinner and licked his wounds later. The _really_ tactical thing to do would have been to have dredged up some embarrassing sexual mishap from skekVar's past, slipped it in before skekSo could intervene, and he knows with a vicious certainty he's going to remember at least three instances before the evening is out. But that will be then, and this is now, and so it is that skekTek tears off a roast leg and stalk off to the relative safety of the laboratory.

Sidetic is as willing an ear as ever, which helps, but that means rehashing the whole awful event aloud, and that of course drives his appetite straight from him. He nibbles a quarter off the leg and pitches the rest to the ravenous scolopod, who appreciates such things.

“There's only so much even I can be expected to take,” he concludes.

Sidetic clacks his little bill, tilts his head, and sings the Flock is All Together Now song. SkekTek gives him a berry.

But the dark shadow over his entire evening is cast. He's still fuming quietly, still hunched over his workbench when the Chamberlain comes knocking. Figuratively speaking. Even skekSil never bothers to knock.

“Scientist! You left before crawlies were set loose.”

“Unless the one you're hiding up your sleeve is for me, I assure you I have no patience for whatever it is you're here to say.”

SkekSil produces the twitching, shrieking little thing and hands it over to skekTek, who takes it without looking at him. A crunching of miniature bones later, his shoulders are fractionally less tense.

“Hmm. It was unnecessary, what General said. Speaks more to General's character than Scientist's.”

“I'm aware.”

“Our time of long nights, freedom, beauty, pleasure...these were glorious times. Should be remembered fondly, not slung about as some silly weapon. Should bring us together as Skeksis.”

SkekTek sets aside the schematics he's made absolutely no progress on. Rubs the bridge of his beak with weary talons. “It was an absurd period in our history anyhow. Licentious layabouts, every one of us.”

“True, yes, but how much happier we were for it! You spoke truth, skekTek. Thra thrived when Skeksis thrived.”

“A state which I've repeatedly failed to deliver,” skekTek grouses, irritable at the course of this entire conversation. SkekSil's specialty lies in telling everyone what they want to hear and this is very much the opposite of that. “We thrived because we were young, beautiful! We had the luxury of lying around all day and pawing at one another. Our bodies were _worth_ celebrating.”

“Ah, but Scientist works to make Skeksis young again. Scientist looks for answer every day. Who else in castle, in all of Thra, is capable of this?” In what seems to be the interest of letting the point sink in, he allows himself to be distracted by one of skekTek's menagerie – a blackened little lump of a swamp beast that's giving him the stink eye. He taps the glass until it folds its skin over its face and mimics wet sod. “And that _is_ worth celebrating. And once upon a time, Skeksis did.”

“The Skeksis did a great many things once upon a time,” skekTek grumbles.

“Chamberlain remembers. Oh, yes...I remember well. And you remember too, yes? Feast of a Thousand Tongues? High Rose Masquerade?” He watches closely now, a smirk playing at his beak. “...Climbing tanglewood?”

There it is. The way skekTek's hand freeze for just the barest pith of a moment. The tremble in his shoulders.

“That _was_ a good night, yes? Skeksis took turns holding Scientist in arms, seeing for selves how lovely Scientist looks in ecstasy...and other Skeksis? Took turns between Scientist's legs.”

“Do you have a _point_ you'd like to get to, skekSil?” SkekTek suddenly snaps, turning with such a sharpness and ferocity that it makes even the Chamberlain jump. “Or do you simply delight in mocking me?”

Chamberlain smiles, slow and cool and knowing. He takes a step forward, another, and another still, to carry him past the border of skekTek's well established personal bubble. Close enough that if it weren't for the broil and hiss of distant lava or the hum of machinery, he might hear the uptick in skekTek's heartbeat.

“The point is, dear friend Scientist,_ I_ have not forgotten. _I _remember..._exactly_ what Scientist enjoys.” SkekTek has gone as still as the grave, anger having given way to rapid dawning comprehension. Watching the Chamberlain the way a Moog watches the shadow of a rakkbird circling overhead. “And how _very_ lovely Scientist looks while enjoying it.”

SkekTek shivers once again. And this time, it doesn't take the analytical eye of the Chamberlain to catch it.

“Saw your chance and took it, did you?”

“Of course.”

“...Get on with it, then.”

“Hmmm...”

His teeth close around skekTek's throat. Gently, gently, the way his teeth never close around the throats of others when the sense is purely symbolic. Working up and down, tongue winding soft against the pounding pulse point, slow enough to allow the Scientist ample time to shove him off. But skekTek doesn't shove him off; merely swallows hard and tips his head to allow for more, and skekSil threads his arms around his waist, tugging thin, narrow hips in closer.

“Mmm, see? Trine go by, Skeksis change, but skekTek's neck is still as sensitive as ever.”

“Ever the observant one, skekSil.”

“Only now and then.”

SkekSil slinks down to his knees, not without effort, and skekTek's talons curl around the work table behind them. SkekSil unties the laden work apron and lets it fall; bunches double handfuls of robe, pulling them up, up, up and out of the way. SkekTek is already half hard, cocks half emerged, blushing an alluring pink about his slit. SkekSil slides a palm from knee to thigh, encouraging his legs to part, and skekTek leans back against the table as they quickly, readily do.

“Now, where to taste, first, I wonder? Scientist looks delicious as ever.”

“_You're _the one who claims to know what I like best.”

“Oh! Well, in that case...”

He licks a slick line up skekTek's vent. Suspects, strongly and correctly, that skekTek had no intention of moaning as loudly as he does.

SkekSil promised to taste him and at first, tasting is an accurate description of what he gives. He takes his sweet time, stealing only the most delicate of licks, the slowest of laps. He gets skekTek wet just so he can dip up the pearls of him with his tongue, like the wine tastings skekAyuk used to offer back when they all still had the patience for it. SkekTek growls, grits his fangs, tosses his head...everything _but_ tell him to get to the point, seemingly content to let the Chamberlain's tongue lead him wherever it will. SkekSil, for one, appreciates the faith. He spreads skekTek's channel with his claws, _and_...

SkekTek throws his head back, groan of relief teetering precariously close to a sob.

He really doesn't stand a chance then. SkekSil's tongue is, as always, cruel and capable, and skekTek's knees are already trembling like an Oxeed leaf in a gale. His twin erections stand bright red and flush, drooling a lurid stream of precum, and if skekSil had to hazard a guess, he would imagine the only reason skekTek doesn't venture to touch them is a desire to make this last longer. He's always been the type to get vocal for anyone who knows what they're doing, all groans and yelps and quivering moans of approval. SkekSil smiles openly against the warmth of him; tilts his head to accommodate his beak, to penetrate him as deeply as possible.

It's astonishing, really, the sheer amount of control he holds over skekTek's body. How a measured, meticulous thrusting of the tongue gets his hips twitching, following the sensation like a plaintive little pet follows a master. How a simple curl in _just_ the right place makes his tail lash like a dying snake. How they all have that distinctive softened dip on the top wall where the nerves of their cocks and their channels combine, if skekSil laps it _hard_, it makes skekTek forget all about the potential consequences of screaming.

It's almost a shame, really, when those small cries begin to come quicker together.

“Ah! _Ah!_”

Muscles ramrod stiff, teeth gritted, skekTek hangs precipitously close to the edge without tottering over, and it takes skekSil a fair bit of time and coaxing to realize he's actively fighting it. Assuming, perhaps even hoping, that this will never happen again. And they certainly can't have _that_. Not on skekSil's watch.

He reaches up, drags a single curled claw up the length of skekTek's right cock. Base to tip.

SkekTek arches like a bow and comes, rippling around skekSil's tongue, loud enough to be heard all the way down the hall. SkekSil rewards him for such good behavior, licks him from the inside out right up until the last flutter. A hand cupped around the heads of skekTek's cocks catches the double stream of ejaculate before it can land anywhere incriminating.

“_Oh.._.” skekTek manages, to no one in particular. “_Oh..._”

SkekSil stands with satisfied and unhurried slowness, licking his beak and reveling in the sight of skekTek sagging back drunkenly against the lab table his talons have been scoring. No need to pull him back down to Thra...no need to speak until he has to. Nothing ruins an afterglow like the sound of the Chamberlain's voice, as the Chamberlain understands better than anyone.

When the long, slow exhale comes, that seems as appropriate a punctuation mark as any.

“Mmmm...SkekTek enjoyed that, I trust?”

SkekTek raises his head and makes a sluggish attempt at glaring. _Very_ sluggish.

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Hm, good. Wonderful.” His eyes roam up and down, transparency earned just a little. “If skekTek has no plans for the rest of evening...”

“I'm not putting my mouth on you, if that's what you're angling after.”

“Not quite. Was thinking maybe something a bit more..._mutual_.”

SkekTek's glare finally materializes. “Is that what this is all about, skekSil? A slow day up top, you needing something to conquer? Would you be so enthusiastic if I told you I fully intended to be the one inside of you?”

“If this is what skekTek is telling, then yes! Please!” He stands there smiling pleasantly, letting skekTek sniff him out for signs of a bluff. “You know me well, skekTek...am not skekUng, not fussy. But after so many trine down here alone, with only machines to satisfy skekTek's needs...rubber and tempered glass are not the same as flesh. Cannot bend like Skeksis can below.” SkekTek huffs, but skekSil is only interested in the fact that he doesn't move to kick him out. Doesn't accuse him of anything. Doesn't refuse. “Come, skekTek. For old time's sake.”

It's still no guarantee either way; skekTek could just as easily rake his face with his talons. He lifts a hand suddenly and skekSil's yelp is barely concealed, hands poised to fly up and protect his eyes against just that.

Instead, skekTek shoves his tools and papers up to the top of the bench and lays back against it with great decisiveness, sinking talons into skekSil's shoulders and dragging him down with him.

“_Excellent_.” Victorious, he breathes deep of the two of them, the acrid scent of chemicals and the pungent scent of animals and even the inexplicable, unmistakable smell of the Crystal utterly smothered by the dizzying scent of arousal. “Scientist smells wonderful. Tasted wonderful. Has been far, far too long since we behaved like Skeksis.”

“Do you plan on _talking_ me to climax, skekSil?”

“Would you like me to?” SkekTek blinks. “As I recall, skekTek used to enjoy talking. Back when Skeksis had all the kind words to say.”

SkekTek is all too quick to get the picture. Knows he isn't referring to a little casual dirty talk.

“I don't require your..._platitudes_.”

“Then will not give platitudes. Only truth.” He feels, and skekTek knows he feels the rise and fall of tension, feels him warring. To mount him would be one thing, but what he offers now, what he asks... “That is, if skekTek desires.”

Once again, skekTek doesn't say no. He also doesn't say yes. But his yellow eyes flicker over skekSil's just once, just briefly. And skekSil, who is well accustomed to taking in far more at a single glance, understands.

He rubs the flat edge of his beak along the Scientist's neck. A call back to older, more affectionate times.

“Mmm...beautiful, brilliant Scientist. How could Skeksis leave you all alone here, down in the dark? Skeksis who once held Scientist, tasted, gathered around to show gratitude with tongues, talons, hips. How could they forget? Surely, surely must have gone mad.”

SkekTek shudders, from bitterness picked open or the weight of someone between his legs or some sordid hodgepodge of the two. But he hooks his talons behind the Chamberlain's head, drawing him closer and silently urging him on. As he shifts their robes high about their waists, skekSil does.

“So cruel. So wrong! SkekTek does not deserve such cruelty, no...not even the ugliest of crawlies deserves this. Clever skekTek, most astounding mind on Thra, who commands every gear and circuit in castle. Keeper of Crystal, who channeled first beams of the Great Sun into Skeksis eyes.”

SkekTek groans...a high, small sound, verging on a whimper. His legs part with a new hunger, markedly different from the one he displayed before. When skekSil runs a cautious fingertip through his residual wetness, he finds him pliant, receptive and soft, and when he takes his own erections in hand to guide them to the waiting entrance, is encouraged by the faint upwards tilt of skekTek's hips.

“SkekTek who _deserves_ pleasure, and not from rumbling machines. Deserves to be wet, and hard...spread open very..._very_...carefully...”

True to his word, he enters skekTek with almost unbearable gentleness. The grip of his channel isn't half as sweet as the raspy, staccato gasp that warms his ear.

“Deserves to be coupled in exactly, just _exactly_ the way skekTek wants.” Amdist the slow, steady starting rolls of his hips, he takes in the sight of skekTek's eyes, wide and wanting and a little lost...and for the moment, too overwhelmed to look immediately away. “Tell me, skekTek, how you want this now. What will make your talons curl hardest. And you shall have.”

The breath skekTek sucks catches around his teeth.

“Slow. Then fast. Bite my neck. But don't..._don't stop talking_...”

He shoves skekSil's face down into the crook of his neck, placing those teeth where they need to be or possibly just keeping his expression well out of view. It doesn't matter. SkekSil has his orders.

“SkekTek is genius,” he praises between nibbles. Rips through the high collar of silk with gentle tearing precision, the way he'd flay back the hide from a cut of meat he was particularly keen on savoring. “Astonishing! Is skekTek's mind that led Skeksis to power, to glory, to everlasting life! Every word of praise skekTek received back when Skeksis understood this, those were praises well earned. Well deserved!” He flexes his phalluses the way he remembers skekTek loved so unfailingly once upon a time, as if to emphasize the point he's driving home. Sure enough, the Scientist moans helplessly at the ceiling.

It's a sound that would drive lesser partners _(ahem, skekVar)_ to savagery, slamming the hot, wet channel until skekTek fights and screams and screams and finally comes in spite of himself. SkekSil is no such brute. SkekTek wants it slow and skekSil appreciates the little noises, the hitches of breath, the rolling tilt of his head.

“Others would run, have run. Traitorous Heretic did. Mariner as well. But skekTek remains here in castle, working endlessly for the good of all Skeksis. And skekTek will be here to see the day Skeksis' own ingratitude rears back, bites them _hard_.”

He punctuates the final word with a smooth, long, deep thrust that crushes his pelvis to skekTek's and rattles both the loose jars at the head of the table and the air from skekTek's lungs. SkekSil wonders if they contain anything important.

“Faster?”

SkekTek nods.

SkekSil is quite content to pepper the thinning skin of his neck with tooth marks as he falls into a new, quicker rhythm. So content, in fact, that he almost forgets his _real _role in this delicious setup until skekTek makes an empty, greedy sound, perhaps coincidental, perhaps not, but it's enough.

“Mmm, other Skeksis are simple and silly creatures. Far too busy squabbling, swilling wine and picking over tithe to remember who first made their lives soft. No eternal youth in crystal chalice? Bah! Is through skekTek's work that Skeksis live long enough to complain about growing old! In sensible world, would be other Skeksis lining up to pleasure Scientist.”

“_Oh...oh, Thra..._”

“Except for General. General doesn't get to join in with pleasuring skekTek. Can stand in corner and watch.” That gets a chuckle, and not a bitter one. SkekSil hoards the sound of it away, slithers his tongue wetly up skekTek's throat. “Not _General_ who Emperor should be trusting with future of Skeksis power...”

SkekTek's tail, which has become increasingly restless, coils high around skekSil's thigh for no more than a second before pulling away just as quickly, too intimate for what this is. Too close to the Ornamentalist and the Gourmand, forsaking every orgy and writhing Bacchanalia in favor of winding their tails together as they get lost in every sensation the other has to offer. But skekSil feels it, and will, and he hoists skekTek's hips hard, changing up the angle so that skekTek shrieks.

“_There! Right there!”_

“Right..._here?_”

Neither of them are in any position to ask themselves the question of whether skekTek's cries of carnal bliss always sounded like incomprehensible agony, and what it might mean if they did not. One thing is for certain...he never mewls.

SkekSil's phalluses roll and stroke and slide. The work bench thumps the wall, loud and crude. They're both going to ache tomorrow, but tomorrow is a trifling concern, nonexistent really. Nothing has ever mattered less than the fact that skekTek is here, and moaning his name in all but the actual word.

“SkeTek is enough, and more. So good. So very, very good...”

Suddenly, skekTek's claws pierce his robes, the lighter garment underneath, layer after layer of the Ornamentalist's meticulously stitched work, and finally the deep blue skin itself. They drag him close, hold him there, close enough to feel the heat when skekTek snarls:

“_Harder! **Harder**, damn you!”_

SkekSil's claws scrabble for purchase as he searches for the ferocity skekTek is demanding, and finds it, and drags it forth with a hand about its throat. His claws grip and bruise and bleed. His ears are pounding, the animals screaming, his beak slack and pulling ugly ragged breaths. Two of the vials fall and shatter.

“You...oh, _you_. Exquisite! Ingenious! SkekTek's work branches far...touches all life in Thra! Will touch more. Thra will know it still...”

Tight, so tight around his cocks, rippling ever tighter.

Warm rivulets down his back, down their thighs.

“And skekTek...SkekTek's name...will be..._for always!”_

His teeth come down a final time, clasping the whole of the Scientist's throat, and skekTek comes with a final excruciating scream.

If skekSil could bottle the sound and turn it over and over in his hands, he would.

His own climax hits him harder than even his carefully prescribed plan ever accounted for, rattling his shoulders and lighting up the spaces between his molecules. He raises his head from the white of it, and from skekTek's throat, just in time to see skekTek's cocks spurting what looks to be their last, and taking them both in hand, thoughtfully milks just a few more drops.

SkekTek is trembling beneath him. SkekSil can't remember when the Scientist's legs took up a death grip around his hips, but they don't release him, and so there he remains, buried in the heat and softness of skekTek's body. The pale blue of his neck is spackled with red, and skekSil is already thinking ahead to the next day, damage control, the silken collar wound higher. The tantalizing possibility that someone will take notice.

The claws of skekTek's feet, as promised, are curled.

SkekTek looks up at him, slowly. Their eyes meet, and something, something quicker and nimbler than either can claim passes between them and departs like smoke through their talons.

“...Get out,” says skekTek.

Without room for argument. Without heat.

His channel or his laboratory, skekSil doesn't require clarification. He tips his head in acquiescence and withdraws, smoothly. It's nothing to tuck his retreating phalluses away, to pass his hands over the silk of his robe. SkekTek is already on his feet and reaching for the broom, sweeping the shards of his ruined laboratory equipment over the rim of the shaft and into the inferno below.

SkekSil lingers by the doorway.

“Remember, skekTek. You asked for truth...would not dream of giving anything but.”

And with that, he's gone. Shuffled on before skekTek can move to make him.

Like a Sifan lurker displacing the water, the very essence of the laboratory reels chaotic and churning from his presence, and the lack of it. SkekTek draws a long, slow breath, riding it out until it settles. The animals have gone quiet in their cages, but Sidetic is still wide-eyed, uncomprehending and shaken by the noise. When skekTek draws near, he flits his wings and utters small squawks, asking questions.

SkekTek can only stroke him, just behind the head with the softest part of his fingers, until he calms.

And then, wordlessly, he heads for the baths.

* * *

_The Three Brothers are low in the sky, and the Skeksis' southwest Intermutual Discussion Chamber – which is really just one long bed – is heady with the smell of incense and evening breezes and sweat and skin. SkekTek lies back in skekGra's arms, breathless._

_The Path-Breaker grins. _

“_I think the Scientist approves of your performance, skekZok.”_

_The Ritual-Master licks his beak. “I think that may be a safe assumption to make.”_

_SkekTek gives a disbelieving laugh.“I think I need to invent a cure for climbing tanglerash every day.”_

_SkekGra fondly traces the curve of his neck with his beak. “It's not about tanglerash. You're **our **Scientist. How could we live with ourselves if we didn't dote on you every once in a while?” The colorful, strewn about throng of Skeksis nod and chime in with agreements._

“_Listen to the sensible Skeksis, skekTek.”_

“_You're marvelous and also, skekOk's been shaking to ride you all night.”_

“_I mean, we could, but what fun would that be?”_

_SkekTek takes an enormous pull from the water jug, dripping with melted frost and kept close to hand. “Well, since you all put forth such convincing arguments...I'm going to die if I don't get skekGra inside of me, but if you've no objections, skekOk, to climbing on top once things get underway...”  
_

“_None whatsoever,” the Scroll-Keeper replies._

“_Beautiful,” purrs skekGra as he transfers the Scientist to skekZok's arms and takes his place between his legs. SkekZok warms to his new role immediately, mouthing with the gentlest of reverence at the soft curve of skekTek's jaw._

“_Concurred. Beautiful.” _

_SkekTek flushes and laughs, clear and bright. He chastises them playfully for their flattery before they can steal his breath away, though as far as he's concerned, they can have it._

_The Three Brothers are low in the sky. SkekTek is safe and cherished. Life is long and kind._

_And it's a lovely, lovely, day._


End file.
